Digimon Adventure Dark
by Unslaadahsil
Summary: A tragic event allows a bit of darkness to creep into Tai's soul. This start a chain of event that could bring to Digiworld salvation, or to its destruction. Rating and eventual romance may change as more chapters are uploaded.
1. Darkness

Humans are fragile beings. But at the same time, they are resiliant. So long as a human is alive, most injuries can be healed.

 _"Tai... it hurts..."_

Sometimes, some injuries cannot be healed. But it is rare, and it usually involves a great trauma on the nervous system. But even then, most injuries can either be overcome, or one can learn to live with them.

 _"Kari... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry"_

So long as the wound is physical, it can be easily overcome. But what happens when the wound is not on the body, but on the soul?

 _"Tai... I'm scared"_

When a human's soul gets hurt, it is much harder to heal.

 _"Don't be scared Kari... everything will be alright, I promise"_

And when a soul is wounded, darkness can creep into it.

 _"Kari? Kari!"_

And what happens when darkness takes hold?

Kindness turns to malice.

Mercy turns to ruthlessness.

Happiness turns to rage.

 _A devastated crossroads, bearing the sign of battle. People stopping what they're doing to gawk at the sight. Cars burning, shops enveloped in flames, holes and cracks in the street._

 _An orange dinosaur, stood vigil his eyes, full of sadness, anger and remorse, daring anyone to approach._

 _And next to it, a young boy of maybe ten or eleven was kneeling on the ground, cradling in his arms his little sister, her breathing becoming shallower and shallower with every breath._

Courage… turns to Vengeance.

 _He breathing stopped._

* * *

Tai and Agumon stood, still, in the middle of the desert, where the portal had just dropped them. Both of them were watching the sand in front of them without truly seeing it. Their eyes were unfocused, almost hollow.

"Tai" said Agumon.

"Yes, Agumon?" replied the boy.

"I'm sorry" the digimon said.

"It's not your fault" replied the boy.

"If only I could have been faster… stronger..."

"You tried to save her" said the boy, firmly, "You're not the one at fault, they are".

"What will we do now?" asked Agumon.

"We'll end this. So that what happened today will never happen to anyone ever again".

* * *

Author note: This first chapter is very short, just to see what kind of response I get top this.

The idea for this story was inspired by a picture I found on pinterest, which showed all the digidestined and their digimon as a darker version of themselves. And in my mind formed the though: "What would happen if one of the digidestined fell to the darkness?"  
This story is the result of that line of thought.


	2. Love

_"You grew up without truly knowing what love meant"_

The words echoed in Sora's mind, almost taunting her, reminding her of her uselessness.

 _"And for this reason, your crest shall never shine"_

Again and again that same scene replayed in her mind, and she had gone from trying to deny it, to wanting to prove it wrong, to finally submitting to the truth of it.

 _"You might as well leave your friends alone before you end up dragging them down"_

What did she know of love anyway? Her father left them, barely a phone call ever since the divorce. Her mother didn't care for her, only for an image of her she had, but that had never been real. Her friends... what friends? They all left. One after the other, they all separated. The only one she could count on, Tai, was gone who knows where, sucked away in that damn portal.

"Sora, Sora, something is coming this way!" Byomon called, breaking the girl from her depressing thoughts.

Something was indeed coming, as a great noise was getting louder by the second, together with sounds of trees being toppled over.

"Let's get out of here!" ordered the girl, starting to run in the opposite direction from where the noise was coming from.

However, the two soon realized the sound was following them. And right after realizing this, human and digimon found themselves having to stop in front of a wall of stone, blocking their path.

They turned around, getting ready to digievolve and either fight or fly away, depending what it was. They were so focused on the noise that they didn't hear the beeping coming from Sora's digivice.

In a few short moments, their pursuer showed itself: a black Greymon, easily half again as large as Tai's Greymon, arrived in front of them and stopped, considering them. Sora and Byomon stared at the great beast, waiting for a signal of what to expect. What they got wasn't what they were expecting.

"Hey there" someone called.

The two looked up, past the Blackgreymon's large mouth and teeth, and noticed the figure leaning against one of its horns. A human boy, with dark brown shorts and a blue shirt, a big mane of hair and googles on his forehead.

" _No way..."_ thought Sora. It was Taichi Kamyia. Her friend Tai. Back from the dead.

Before she could get her brain back in gear and reply, he jumped down from Blackgreymon's head, landing nimbly in front of her.

"How have you been?" he asked.

Instead of answering, Sora ran to him and hugged him fiercely.

"Tai! You have no idea how happy I am to see you're okay!" cried the girl, a few tears spilling from her eyes.

Her eyes however widened when she felt Tai hugging her back and holding her tightly. In the past, Tai's reaction to a hug from anyone would have been surprise and embarrassment, but now he was hugging her back as if his life depended on it.

" _This feels kinda nice..."_ she thought. When she realized he wasn't going to let go first, she took a step back. They were now face to face, close together, and that was when Sora noticed something new about Tai's attire. On his neck there was the crest of Courage, like before, but now there was a second cord around his neck, and on it there was a whistle. A familiar whistle.

"isn't that Kari's whistle?" she asked the boy. The reaction was as if someone had just punched him in the face.

Tai took a couple steps back, his eyes darkening and falling to the ground, away from hers. His entire demeanor screamed defeat.

Seeing this, Sora took a step towards him, and gently nudged his chin with the back of hand, making him make eye contact with her.

"What happened?"

He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself.

"Kari's dead."

Sora was shocked. Kari was dead? The little, sweet girl that always followed Tai around when they were at home? The bundle of cuteness that would call Tai by whistling was gone?

The girl couldn't even think properly. Her brain was stuck on repeat, remembering all the times Kari ended up spending time with her and Tai, which was pretty much every time she went to the boy's house.

Always so sweet and kind… and she was dead? How?

"When I and Metalgreymon were sucked in that vortex," started to recount Tai "we ended up in our world. After the shock of that wore off, the first thing I did was of course to run home and see my family. To make a long story short, my parents were out, but Kari was there, and she remembered Koromon. I spent some time just enjoying being back, letting Koromon and Kari play. But then, we heard an explosion coming from outside, and going to see what it was, me and Koromon found a red Ogremon. He attacked us as soon as he saw us, but..."

Here he paused, his eyes downcast again.

"But Kari had followed us outside..."

* * *

" _Tai!"_

 _He had just managed to get out of the way of a strike from Ogremon's club, when he heard his sister call out to him in worry. Unfortunately, the digimon heard her as well, and with barely a moment of hesitation launched itself at her, swinging his club._

" _Bubble blow!" called out Kormon, trying to distract the Ogremon from its target, without use. The Ogre-like creature didn't even notice the in-training attack._

 _It took it less than a second to reach the little girl, in another half-second the club had completed its arc in the air, hitting the girl and launching her a good distance away._

 _And that half second would remain burned in Tai's mind forever. That half second where his sister, just before she was struck down, had looked at him, her eyes full of worry and fear… for him._

 _Seeing her body fall to the ground, something inside Tai just snapped. An inhuman cry of pain and anger came from his mouth, as a dark orange light exploded from his digivice, so powerful that as it reached the sky it punched a hole straight trough it, opening a portal once again. And as the boy ran to his sister, Koromon went straight to ultimate level, straight to the one digievolution they both once feared. Skullgreymon._

 _The giant skeletal dinosaur slammed his claw on Ogremon, holding it there by digging the sharp tips of his talons just enough to hurt it. However, when Tai reached Kari and saw the deep wound on her chest, his anger was transferred to his digimon, who closed his talons on Ogremon, mangling its body before destroying it completely with a Cursed Breath attack._

 _As the enemy disappeared into data, Skullgreymon reverted to Agumon, going over to Tai and assuming a defensive stance, daring any of the onlookers to come closer and disturb the mourning boy._

 _But after the little girl had drawn her last breath, after the boy had screamed so much he had no voice left, he gathered his sister in his arms and brought her towards the ambulance that had arrived just then. Just too late to be of any help._

 _And when Tai had walked back to Agumon, no words had been needed. The just took hold of each others arm and allowed the digivice to bring them back to digiworld._

* * *

"And here we are" finished Tai, his voice having gone almost hollow during the story.

As he was talking, Blackgreymon had reverted to Agumon and they had moved to a group of rocks nearby, sitting on them.

Sora had tears streaming down her face, "I can't believe it..." she murmured.

"I'll never forget her eyes" said Tai, his voice broken and choked with emotion. "She was looking at me, and she wasn't afraid for herself… she might not have even realized the danger she was in. She was just worried about me. She was just afraid for me, not for herself… and I… I...".

He chocked back a sob "I couldn't protect her! I'm her brother, I should have been the one worrying and protecting, not her! I should have saved her! I failed her..." and now he was crying. For the first time since Kari's death, he was crying.

Sora hugged him, trying to both offer and take some form of comfort, and felt him hugging her back with a fierceness born of desperation.

For an unknown amount of time, they wept together for the little girl they both considered a sister. And Tai let it all out. All the anger and frustration and guilt he felt, he just let them flow out with the tears.

After all the tears were spent, Sora pulled back a little bit, looking Tai in the eyes. He looked so lost…

"What now?" she asked.

"Now I find whoever sent that Ogremon" said Tai "And make him pay for hurting my sister".

"Sora, it's getting dark" said Biyomon, a couple hours later.

She and Agumon had stayed close to the two humans, keeping an eye out for trouble, both recognizing that the two needed time.

But now the sky was starting to grow dark, and they needed to find a place to camp and some food.

"We should probably find someplace to sleep" said Tai, getting to his feet. He felt lighter somehow. The anger and guilt were still there, but were not as prominent as they had been prior to meeting Sora. Maybe what people say is true: talking about it helps.

"I'll look for some food, you find a place to sleep and start a fire" Sora replied.

They both knew they wouldn't be okay just because they stopped crying, but it was a first step, and right then not thinking about it sounded like a nice prospect.

Later in the evening, when the sun had fully disappeared from view but some light still lingered, the two preteens and their digimon partners were sitting around a fire, just outside a small natural cave, eating hot dogs they had gotten from a hot dog stand manned by a Sorcermon, who had given them for free as they were his first clients in forever.

"That," declared Sora, "was strange". Tai chuckled.

As they finished their meal, Tai said:

"Hey Sora?"

"Yeah Tai?" replied the girl.

"There's something that I wanted to tell you… I've been thinking about this ever since coming back to Digiworld actually".

She just nodded, waiting for him to continue. It was obvious this was important to him.

"I just… ever since we met, you've been at my side. Always. No matter what was going on, you were my friend first and everything else second. No matter in what kind of trouble I dragged you, you just smiled and helped me get out of it. You're my best friend, and..."

Here he stopped, as if trying to collect his thoughts.

"After… what happened, I kept thinking that I wished I had spent more time with Kari. Stayed home with her more often, talked with her more, played with her more. Invite you to our house more often so that we could all play together, even if she was younger than us… even if I didn't realize it, I was taking for granted that I would always have time in the future to spend with my sister. And now… so I decided that I would never take that for granted again. I'm going to enjoy the time I spend with my friends, every minute of it, without thinking there will always be another time. And so I want you to know, you're my best friend, the most important person in my life, and I promise to never take you for granted".

Sora was both surprised and happy at his little speech. While she knew her and Tai were good friends, she never thought she had such importance for him. And thinking back on her family and friends, she thought that he, as well, occupied the same place in her life as well.

"Tai… it's the same for me too." she told him, moving to sit beside him, "You're the most important person for me too. You say you dragged me into trouble, I say I was running into trouble right beside you. We've been best friends since that day on the soccer field when we first met. And I promise you, no one will ever take that place from you. You will always be my most important person."

They were staring into each other eyes, and it took them a while to notice that the red light illuminating them wasn't coming from the fire.

"Sora… your crest!" exclaimed Tai.

The girl took the crest in her hands, admiring the soft but bright red glow.

"I can't believe it… I never even knew what love was..." Sora murmured.

"What was all that about being the most important person then?" asked Biyomon.

The two preteens turned to the pink digimon, perplexed. Biyomon fidgeted a little, but said:

"I don't really understand it all that well, but doesn't loving someone mean they are the most important person in your life? Or that they are part of your family? Don't you love Agumon, Tai? Don't you love me, Sora? Aren't we a family? Isn't that love?"

Sora and Tai looked at each other, thoughtful.

"I think you understand this better than you believe Biyomon" Sora said. Her partner perked up at hearing she might have helped her companion.

"Do you really think that's what this is? What we have between us? Is it… love?" asked Tai.

"I don't know" replied Sora "I'm hardly an expert, crest non withstanding".

The she let out a deep sigh and cried out:

"Ah, damn it! We're eleven! How are supposed to know what love is?"

"Then… shall me make a promise?" asked Tai.

"What promise?" the girl asked.

"Let's promise each other that we will figure it out together. One day, when we're older."

Sora looked at him strangely, but then giggled.

"Okay then," she said "But let's make it like this: since we promised to always be each other most important person, then when we're older we'll be boyfriend and girlfriend, okay?"

"Aren't we that already?" asked Tai, perplexed, "I mean, you're a girl, and my friend, and I'm a boy, and your friend..."

"No, not like that!" exclaimed Sora, "I meant… a couple, as in two people in love. I want that, once we're older, we won't become a couple with anyone but each other first. That the first time we're a couple, it will be with each other" she grimaced, "maybe I'm not saying it very well..."

"No, no… I get it" replied Tai, looking at her thoughtfully.

"Alright" he finally said, extending his hand. "I promise".

Sora shook his hand, and then pulled him into a hug.

And with that, a small seed of light was planted into Tai's soul.

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter is significantly lighter than the first, and I have a couple reasons for it: first of all, I need this and a few other chapters down the line in order to set up the rest of the story after the first arc is concluded. Secondly, I want to do a balancing act with Tai, with the light and darkness in his soul. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say keep following and you'll see.**

 **lastly, in case anyone is wondering about it, here I have both Tai and Sora switching relatively quickly between being destroyed by Kari's death and talking normally. That's because grief has five stages, and the first one is denial. When you're in denial, unless the issue is right in front of your face, you do your best to ignore it. I want to have them go trough the five stages in small parts of the chapters.**

 **thanks for reading. R &R.**


	3. Hope

**Sorry for the kinda long wait (though it is a short wait for my usual timeframe) but after years of searching, I finally found my favorite song of my childhood: Shouri (Zen no theme). For those of you who don't know, it's the music from the Digimon adventure anime, the one that can be both happy and sad depending on the situation. Check it on youtube, it's beautiful music.**  
 **Why am I telling you this? Because when I listened to it, I felt like shit for killing off Kari in this story. It honestly brought tears to my eyes that in my story she's dead, and I fought with myself for days over deleting this story or not. In the end, I decided to continue it, but it took me a while to get the inspiration back.**  
 **That said, I feel the need to warn you of one thing: the first seven or eight chapters will be pretty much how each chosen child gets their crest to glow, and they will be dialogue heavy and with very little action. Also, I'm deviating heavily from the anime, though the main plot will remain the same (more or less).**

 **That said, read and enjoy.**

* * *

"Hey Sora?" asked Tai.

He, Sora and their digimon partners were walking trough the forest, having picked a random direction after waking up that morning.

"Yeah Tai?" replied the girl.

"Yesterday you said something about how your crest is connected to love. What's that about?" the boy asked.

"Guess I forgot to tell you" she replied "but while me and Biyomon were traveling alone, we found this strange little digimon, Demidevimon, talking trough some kind of shadow to someone else. And they were talking about the crests. From that I learned that each crest represents something. Yours is the crest of courage, while mine is the crest of love. And to activate a crest, you have to personify the emotion or concept it represents."

"So that's why it glowed back then" said Tai, remembering the events inside Etemon's pyramid; "What about the others? What do their crests represent?"

"Well," started to list Sora "Matt has the crest of friendship, Izzy has the crest of knowledge, Mimi has the crest of sincerity, Joe the crest of honesty and T.K. the crest of hope."

"I can sure picture Izzy having the crest of knowledge" said Tai, some mirth in his voice.

"You and him go way back, uh?" asked Sora.

"Yeah, met him a couple years after I met you. I surely consider him my best male friend." Tai paused for a moment, then added: "I hope we find him soon. He's incredibly good at planning in advance, but thinking on his feet is not his forte. I don't want him getting into some sticky situation and being unable to get out of it."

"I'm sure he'll be alright, he has Tentomon with him after all" reassured Sora.

Neither of them really wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

* * *

After a little more time walking, the four reached a beach, and decided to move along it. Soon they noticed what looked like an amusement park a little way ahead of them. They also noticed their digivices starting to beep.

"Uh, look at that" said Tai, "Apparently one of our missing companions is there."

"What do you mean?" asked Sora, confused how the beeping of the digivice could relate to that.

"You never noticed? If we get separated, our digivices show each others locations, but only in a limited range. It's how I was following you yesterday." explained the boy, showing her the screen of his digivice, where two dots could be seen in the center, with another dot some distance away.

"Useful… come on, let's go see who it is." said Sora, walking faster towards the amusement park.

It was in a short time that they found Tokomon, asleep on the beach next to a digivice and the crest of hope. It took just a little prodding to get the little digimon awake.

"Tai… Agumon… you came back", were his first words upon seeing the four.

"We did," confirmed Tai, "now can you tell us what happened? Why are you here alone, where is T.K.?"

Tokomon appeared to grow angry; "T.K. got angry at me and threw the digivice and crest on the beach. Apparently his brother left him behind because he was tired of him, and T.K. took it bad".

"Matt abandoned T.K.?" asked Tai, shaking with rage. As far as he was concerned, someone who abandoned their siblings was worse than the worst trash.

"That's what we were told. To me it sounded strange, but I guess T.K. would know best".

"Who told you?" asked Sora.

"A digimon went the direction Matt had gone towards after telling T.K. to wait for him in the amusement park. When he came back, he said Matt had told him to tell T.K. what I just told you. The digimon was called Demidevimon".

"Him again", commented Tai, "This is the second time he's given bad advice to a digidestined. I wonder if he's doing it on purpose".

"Something to investigate, but later. Right now we need to find T.K. and make sure he's not in danger. Without his digivice and digimon partner, he's defenseless!" said Sora.

It took them only about five minutes to reach the amusement park from where they had found Tokomon. The park itself wasn't large, just the basic attractions found in almost all amusement parks and a few empty food stands.

Because of that, it was fairly easy to spot the green wearing kid riding on a rotating cups attraction. However, he didn't look like he was having fun. His expression was downright downtrodden.

"T.K.!" called out Sora, getting the kid's attention.

"Sora! Tai!", the kid called back, "Agumon! Biyomon! I'm so happy to see you again!"

"It's great to see you as well", replied Tai, "What's this we hear about you and Matt?"

The kid grew more somber, and his voice was angry; "Matt said he didn't want to have me around anymore. That I was a crybaby. If he doesn't want me around, then I don't want him around either!"

"Did Matt tell you that?" asked Sora gently.

"No… he didn't even tell it to me directly! He had a digimon come back and tell us!"

"Demidevimon, right?" asked Tai, getting a nod from him, "And how can you be sure he's telling the truth?"

"Why would he lie?" simply asked T.K.

"He lied to me before", said Sora, "Had I listened to him, my crest would have never glowed and I would not be here now".

"Hey T.K.! I found something to eat!" exclaimed a voice from behind them, making them all turn around. What they found was Demidevimon flying towards them, his claws holding a chest of mushrooms.

As he saw who was there with T.K. however, he stopped mid air, almost letting go of the chest in surprise.

"Demidevimon… it's been a while" said Sora, a pleasant smile on her face.

"Hi-i Sora" stuttered the dark digimon, "I would not have expected you to travel with another digidestined. I was under the impression that you had decided to travel alone?"

"I did decide that, yes", confirmed the girl, "but then I met Tai and he convinced me otherwise".

"Oh, Tai did, didn't he?" replied Demidevimon, mentally cursing the boy for undoing a perfect work of manipulation. "I hope that was the right decision… hey, where is that Agumon?"

Indeed, while Demidevimon was focusing on Sora, Tai had signaled Agumon to move his way around the flying devil and, a strangely silent digievolution later, Blackgreymon snapped forward and trapped Demidevimon in his powerful jaws.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! What's the big idea? I was trying to help the kid you know..." Demidevimon trailed off when he noticed the distinctly sinister smirk Tai was giving him.

"Now, my little friend, here's the thing" said Tai, his voice the epitome of pleasantness, "You lied to Sora. And I'm pretty sure you lied to T.K. as well. I may not like Matt all that much, but him and I are similar enough for me to know that he would never abandon his little brother unless he had no choice".

Tai leaned with his arm on Blackgreymon snout, as the digimon had kept his head close to the ground after snapping Demidevimon.

"So you see, I believe you are a danger at best and an enemy at worst. So, the only way you get out of this alive is by telling me the truth and only the truth. Understand me?"

"And if I don't?" asked the little fiend, calling the digidestined's bluff.

The answer he got was Blackgreymon's jaws slowly applying more pressure, to the point that the dark digimon knew just a little more and he would be nothing but floating data.

"Alright! I'll tell you whatever you want, just make him stop!"

"Good", said Tai, motioning to his partner to stop crushing the little digimon, "First question: was what you and that other digimon saying about the crests the truth?"

"Yes" replied Demidevimon, "If you mean about what the crests represent, then yes"

"Second question: Was it true what you told T.K. about Matt?"

"No. I never even saw his brother. I just flew out into the ocean far enough not to be seen by land and waited enough time to be credible" answered Demidevimon after a little extra encouragement from Blackgreymon.

"Good, good. Now it's where it gets interesting for me. Tell me, am I right in believing that whoever sent you wants us to remain ignorant to the power of the crests and the possibility of going beyond champion level?"

"All I know is that I was tasked to make sure your crests never glowed" answered Demidevimon, giving as little truth as possible without outright lying, "I don't even know what the power of the crests is. Only that you guys have them and that I had to stop you from using them".

"Good enough for confirmation for me" replied Tai, "Next, did your boss ever sent someone into the portal I disappeared into after destroying Etemon?"

Demidevimon looked at the boy strangely. For sure, his master had sent someone to the place where the digidestined of courage had disappeared, but the digimon sent had never reported back. He had been assumed to have been destroyed by one of the digidestined.

"Yes…" answered the dark digimon slowly, trying to guess why he was being asked this.

"Was that digimon a red Ogremon?" asked the boy, his fingers visibly twitching in anticipation.

"Yeah" replied the digimon, guessing that the boy wanted to know where the enemy he had probably been the one to destroy came from. If he already considered Demidevimon an enemy, then this information wouldn't change anything.

However, the moment the answer was out of his mouth, Blackgreymon snapped his jaws shut, maiming and destroying Demidevimon.

"Thanks, that was all I wanted to know" said Tai, almost mockingly, as he watched the data that once formed the small dark digimon float away.

* * *

"I didn't scare you, did I?" asked Tai as he approached Sora and T.K., who had moved a little bit away during the interrogation.

"That was brutal Tai" said Sora, "plus, you told him you would let him go if he told you the truth".

"No, I didn't" explained Tai "I just told him that the only way he would get out of it alive was by answering me. I never said that it was guaranteed that he would get out alive if he did."

"Was what he said about Matt a lie?" asked T.K.

"It would appear so, little guy" replied Tai, "Which means that your brother is out there, either still trying to get back here or in trouble. In both cases, it's better if we go looking for him"

T.K. nodded.

Learning that Matt and Gabumon had taken a small boat to traverse the lake, Tai proposed they wait until the day after, as it was getting dark, and use Birdramon to fly over the water. The others agreed.

They found some fruit on the trees around the park to eat. None of them even thought about eating the mushrooms that Demidevimon had brought.

As they were eating, Sora and Tai noticed that T.K. was barely eating anything.

"Hey T.K. everything alright? You don't like it?" asked Tai.

"No, no… it's good..." replied T.K., "it's just..."

"Yeah?" encouraged Sora.

"I'm worried… about Matt" finally revealed T.K. "Demidevimon lied, but what if Matt really is tired of me? What if he left me in this park because he didn't want to be with me anymore?"

"If, if, if… and if my aunt had mustaches she would be my uncle" replied Tai "Look, Matt is your big brother. Big brothers protect their siblings, however they can. If he asked you to wait for him here, he surely thought you would be safer here than with him… there's no way he would put you at risk..."

As he was talking, the boy went from cheerful to sober to downcast, thoughts of his little sister on his mind.

Seeing his dark look, Sora moved to his side and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him a little bit. T.K. looked on, confused, wondering why Tai looked so sad.

"Anyway," continued the boy, recovering, "if Matt is stupid enough as to be tired of you, then we'll just have to beat some sense into him and drag him with us".

"That's right!" exclaimed Sora, "I'll grab him by his ear and drag him straight to you to apologize if that is the case, don't you worry T.K."

The kid smiled at this, picturing his big brother being dragged by the ear by Sora, probably with Gabumon looking on, perplexed. It was a funny picture.

"Don't you worry" told him Tai, "no matter what, we will find Matt, and you will hear from his own mouth that he would never abandon you. You two are family, and family is at your side, always. Even if you don't want them to, they will still help you, because that's what a family does. So remember, it's his job to protect you… and maybe one day, you'll get to protect him."

T.K. nodded emphatically, a big smile on his face now. At the same time, the crest on his neck started to glow a soft yellow. He didn't notice it, but the other two did. Neither said anything though. There would be time to tell the kid what his crest meant, but for now, it was enough that his faith in his brother was restored, and with that, his hope was kindled once again.

* * *

 **I seriously hate how this site takes all the spaces I put in-between paragraphs and just puts it all together. I had to use horizontal separation lines to divide my paragraphs, something I don't like to do, but unfourtunately I can't find a way for the story to keep my formatting once it is posted as a chapter. Maybe I'll ask support one of these days.**

 **Leave a review if you liked it.**


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